


Machete

by SegaBarrett



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M, Nick lives, Troy Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:40:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21601426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Nick's trapped in vines. Troy has the way through.
Relationships: Nick Clark/Troy Otto
Comments: 3
Kudos: 31
Collections: Fortune Favors: Round One— Rider-Waite-Smith





	Machete

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Fear, and I make no money from this.
> 
> A/N: Named for and somewhat inspired by "Machete" by Amanda Palmer.
> 
> Cards chosen: Ace of wands (reversed), 7 of wands, 7 of pentacles (reversed)

Nick’s in a vine. In a vice.

And it’s Madison who pulls him into it, who cranks it tighter.

Because Troy, Troy was everything. And he thought he would feel something, some release of pressure but no, there’s nothing, and he wonders if it’s because he’s like Troy was before, before Nick gave him drugs and taught him to feel.

It all seems so weird now to look back on it.

They drifted down the river and live in a baseball diamond and it’s all black and white because Troy brought color into his life. 

The only one who seems to notice his new listlessness is Strand, who is sympathetic but does not have resurrection within his skillset.

Whenever Nick closes his eyes, all he can see is Troy, because Troy was everything. Troy had told him that Nick was the one who taught him to feel fear, but Troy had taught Nick how to – he didn’t have a word for it.

Without Troy, Nick is aimless, and he follows Madison in no particular direction and asks no questions. He doesn’t think about anything, and when Alicia tries to talk to him he gives her one-word answers and brushes her off.

Nick looks for Troy amongst the dead, because there would be some weird kind of peace in seeing him there. He wasn’t given the chance to time how long it would take Troy to come back, but Nick only hopes that it wouldn’t take too long.

Maybe the headshot had ended that, though.

Maybe Madison had broken Troy’s brain.

***

Nick thinks he’s going to die, and he finds that he’s at piece with it. A targeted bullet with his name on it, shot by a child.

A fitting end, right? Except it’s not an end, only a rising action.

Because as he’s bleeding out he feels a hand on his chest, then his thigh, and he knows it’s not the ever-encroaching rot of death creeping up on him but it’s a lifeline.

It’s Troy.

***

Nick doesn’t know how Troy has managed to stay alive. He’s sopping wet and the wound on his head has scabbed over angrily.

It’s a pyrrhic victory, for Nick’s not sure that either of them will make it through the night. But they’re together at least, together at last and Troy feels so warm the way he lays his hand against Nick’s and mumbles words Nick can’t quite hear.

He can feel himself unwinding, unfolding, and letting Troy’s voice coax him. 

“Nicky, why the long face?” Troy is saying, and he wonders if Troy can’t see that he’s dying or he just has decided he will refuse to acknowledge it. Or perhaps Troy is planning to time him, to see how long it takes for him to come back. What will Troy do then?

Maybe he is planning to time himself, too, so they can be together. Walking together forever, mindless and careless.

Pure instinct. Isn’t that the dream, after all?

***

Nick doesn’t die. He floats in between the space for weeks, however, as Troy tells him stories of his life before. 

His life before the end of the world, and his life before Nick Clark too. 

It’s slow-going, as Troy feeds him water and, slowly, solid food, and Nick has some time in the moments of lucidity to wonder how Troy nursed himself back to health. Then again, it’s Troy Otto, so why should he be surprised that he can cut away at the binds of death that tried to gather around him, the ones that try to cling to Nick even now?

“I left school around… maybe twelve. I still remember Big Otto coming in and getting me and telling me I was gonna go back home and not go to school anymore, and I asked why and he just wouldn’t really say anything. But I heard the lady talking about how they didn’t get paid enough to deal with ‘kids like that Otto boy’.”

Nick manages to be lucid enough to ask what it was that Troy did.

“I don’t remember,” Troy says, and he just looks lost, all over again.

***

They don’t talk much when they start walking at last; it takes too much energy. Since Troy’s trip beyond the veil and back, Nick has become a different person, always looking across at him to try to see if he’ll lose him if he looks away too quickly.

He hasn’t walked with the dead since he nearly became one of them.

He wants to protect Troy, the way that Jake should have and claimed to but never seemed to follow through on, though he doesn’t know exactly how.

Eventually they find a lonely bed of grass in the middle of the desert and collapse on to it, lips pressed together and bloody hands together – where did all the blood come from, after all? The only sound is the low hum of the desert, the chirp and scammer of the creatures who make it their home.

That includes them, now, because where else can they go? Not back to the ranch, not to that godforsaken baseball diamond.

There is nowhere for them, and Nick finds that that doesn’t bother him at all.

***

Some days, he finds that he still thinks of Alicia. Luciana. And sometimes Madison, though the memory is filled with hammer-sharp precision and a bed of nails that dig inside him and refuse to let him go.

He traces Troy’s forehead with his fingertips sometimes, not knowing what he’s afraid to find or what he hopes to find. When he was a child, he would run his hands over the eyes of his teddy bears obsessively, to make sure that they were still there.

He needs to make sure that Troy is still there, in one piece.

“You look tired, poet. Maybe we should stop again,” Troy will say when he does it, and give him that cock-eyed glance that says that they will keep moving on until it comes time to time it for good.

That they’ll keep cutting through the vines until there are none left or until they bleed out.


End file.
